


Nature of the Beast

by Tseecka



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, Action, Fighter/Sacrifice, Gen, Loveless - Freeform, M/M, world-building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 06:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tseecka/pseuds/Tseecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loveless AU. Snapshot of a larger universe, where Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham are the Fighter/Sacrifice team known as 'Tasteless'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature of the Beast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShittyWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShittyWriter/gifts).



The discordant edge of Tobias’ spells was making Will’s teeth ache, and he found it difficult to concentrate. The jangling filled the air. Helplessly, he turned to Hannibal, concentrating on hearing the Fighter’s voice over the strange music. “Can’t you do something about that?” he yelled. He flinched away from the whistling as a Bind spell flew through the air, making a noise like a broken harp string as it cut through the air. Hannibal countered it, but the edge of the wire word still sliced a shallow line across Will’s bicep. 

Hannibal breathed heavily, his perfectly coiffed hair falling into wispy disarray around his face. He nodded, in answer to Will’s order, and cast his hand out towards the opposing pair. 

“Stifle!”

Franklyn’s hand came up to his throat in answer to the physical manifestation of the silencing attack, his eyes widening as he felt it’s effect. The off-putting musical sounds of Tuneless’ attacks cut off, as though someone had pulled the plug on the amplifiers of an entire orchestra, and Will felt himself able to breathe more easily, his head no longer ringing. He straightened, touched the line of blood snaking down his cheek, and nodded to Hannibal. He could feel his strength returning, and knew that their battle was once again on equal footing. 

With the angry sounds of Tobias’ spells no longer giving him the advantage, he glanced to Franklyn. The Sacrifice, gagged and choking on nothing, pleaded back with his eyes, begging Tobias to counter the spell. Instead, Tobias lowered his arm, and moved his gaze to Hannibal and Will. Will was confused; while Franklyn could no longer issue orders, there was nothing barring Tobias from casting spells of his own volition, in defence of his Sacrifice. 

“Your arsenal is impressive,” he said, stepping forward and moving past the other man. Franklyn moved to stop him; Tobias issued a quiet “Bind”, which jangled through the air. Hannibal moved to intercept the attack, and Will braced himself, but the wires that manifested this time were focused on the helplessly sputtering Franklyn. They wrapped about his legs, anchoring him to the spot, and around his arms, yanking them both down to his sides. His eyes bulged; he made a quiet choking sound. Tobias smirked, and turned back to the Tasteless pair. 

Will was confused, but as he looked to Hannibal, his Fighter seemed to have already figured out what was going on. “Bedelia won’t like what you’re doing,” he said, referring to the Coordinator. Will had never met her, but he knew that both Hannibal and Tobias had trained under her tutelage at the Fighter school. There were telltale signs in their movements, their attacks and defense patterns, the careless, precise grace with which their cast their words. 

“I have long since ceased caring what that bitch thinks,” Tobias snarled. “She betrayed me long before I even entertained the notion of doing the same to her. She taught us grace, Hannibal, grace and poise and refinement. The elegant sweepings of a conductor, weaving a symphony of words and music through the air, using the magic to fulfill the promise music makes. Feeling, emotion, turned to action, used to inflict pain or sorrow, to bring healing and joy. We had such dreams, you and I, artisans of our craft. Working to reject the debasing chains our names would bind us with. ‘Tuneless’, ‘Tasteless’--they would be names of irony, belying the truth of our natures!” 

Will watched Hannibal’s face, silent. Though Tobias’ words were growing more impassioned, obviously trying to get through the stoic exterior, to appeal to something deeper within the other man, it was all too plain to Will what was going on in Hannibal’s mind. A Sacrifice knows his Fighter intimately, as well as any person can; has to be used to reading the secrets they try to hide. And Will knew his Fighter far more intimately than most. 

Hannibal was calculating. Tobias’ words weren’t inspiring him, they were disgusting him, and Will could see it. He stretched out a hand, encircling Hannibal’s wrist with his; while he would never even consider commanding the man outside of a spell battle, that didn’t mean he utterly lacked any sort of control over Hannibal’s actions, and they both knew the touch to be a plea for restraint. Hannibal glanced down at Will, and offered a quick smile, belied only by the slight bunching of the skin in the crow’s feet around his eyes. 

Tobias, however, read it differently. “You see!” he crowed, looking from Hannibal to Will and back again. “He knows, Dr. Lecter. He hears the truth in my words. You are more than him, better than; above your name, the recipient of a greater destiny!” There was a wicked gleam in his eyes, something crazed that gave Will a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “You were named ‘Tasteless’, like something crass and foul. We both know--that is not your nature. Being chained to this--” He looked at Will, his eyes raking up and down his body in a way that twisted Will’s stomach and prompted a brief proprietary glare from Will’s Fighter. 

“You cannot fight without a Sacrifice, Tobias,” Hannibal murmured as he extricated his wrist from Will’s grip. Will let him, no longer caring about what his Fighter would do, though he still would take no active part in it. There would be no commands from him, restrictive, permissive, or otherwise. Not unless Hannibal desired it. “And the longer you run from him, the more strongly the control will attempt to wrest you back. As you say--our names, while liars as to our nature, are truly markers of our destiny. And our destiny is to be with the Sacrifices for whom we are meant.”

“There can be no pull of destiny if they are dead,” Tobias jeered, smirking in Will’s direction. Will forced himself to remain still, his face shaping itself into a mask of detachment. 

“And how would you propose to do that?” Hannibal wanted to know. “Damage cannot be done to a Sacrifice by their own Fighter, nothing so profound as the taking of a life. It’s forbidden; the magic counteracts it.”

“So first, the bond must be broken.” Tobias’ grin grew somewhat manic; it was an unsettling expression on the normally restrained face. He raised both arms, like a conductor with his baton. His right arm swept down in a smooth, sharp cutting motion. “Relinquish.”

Hannibal made no move to defend him; Will didn’t flinch. The line of text along the inside of Franklyn’s left wrist, and Tobias’ right, blazed with a white light. It wasn’t a spell that Will knew, but as he met Franklyn’s eyes in their fright, he understood the implicit purpose. Relinquish--to deny, to give up, to abandon all claim. Tobias was attempting to cut off their ties from each other, to sever the bonds that had brought their team together in the first place. It wasn’t something Will had thought possible

There was a discordant buzz through the air, as though an organ somewhere was playing the Devil’s Chord and shaking loose the dust from the pillars of Creation itself. “Consider this carefully,” Hannibal warned, but his voice lacked even the slightest note of urgency. Tobias’ arm was shaking, fighting against some invisible resistance that didn’t want to let him go. 

His right arm, the light cuffing the wrist growing even brighter, swept out to the side, palm turning upwards. Will recognized the motions, now; a director, counting the second beat in the measure. He wondered, idly, if the song Tobias was weaving would be a waltz. “Release.”

The noiseless sound grew louder, somehow, shaking his teeth. He could feel it vibrating in his bones. The light around Tobias’ wrist exploded outwards, meeting a similar explosion from Franklyn’s side of the room, and Will found he had to shield his eyes. He took a step back, and was gratified to note that Hannibal stood before him, prepared for a possible attack. 

There was no attack forthcoming, however; only a terrible cry that wrenched itself from Franklyn’s throat, the Stifle spell Hannibal had cast suddenly dissolving. Tobias’ head rocked back violently on his neck, a manic laugh bubbling from his throat as the whiteness spread to his eyes, blanking them out as magic waged a proprietary war within. 

As he was distracted, Hannibal stepped away from Will, and Will saw the scalpel as he palmed it from the splintered remains of the steady oak desk behind them. His blood surged, and he felt heat rising into his face that had nothing to do with the cool light sheathing their opponents. He watched Tobias, listened to Franklyn’s unearthly cry--the most musical composition he had ever produced, Will would have gambled. 

“Do you see, Hannibal!” Tobias cried out, as the light faded from around them. Franklyn sagged to the ground, breathing heavily and uttering tiny, feeble sobs with every second breath. Will glanced at him, then away. Tobias he could respect, as a Fighter and a warrior--callous and unconscionable as he seemed to be. But Franklyn was a weakling, was fat and slow, and had lost the loyalty of his Fighter. There was only an end waiting for him; and with the shift in the room, from duel to freedom to outright murder, the words scraped into Will’s skin seemed to burn him from the inside out. Will glanced around for Hannibal, worried that with the light’s fading, Tobias would note Hannibal’s absence as the man prowled about the outside of the room to round on Tobias from behind. His eyes, however, were still obscured with the white light, though it had faded everywhere else. “It is possible, for those who are strong enough to take what they deserve. Men like us should not be subservient to these pale, pathetic worms.” 

“Tobias...is that really what you think of me?” Franklyn’s piteous whimper came from the direction of the floor. Will watched him sit up, crossing his legs awkwardly and cradling his wrist in his other hand. The flesh where his name should have been was scorched and burned away, leaving nothing but black, dead skin behind. A look confirmed that Tobias’ was the same. 

“Franklyn, my dear fellow--I don’t give a damn. I don’t have a single thought to spare you. You are a waste of my time.” Tobias rounded on him, and Franklyn flinched away, cheeks streaked with tears. Will felt no pity, only the surge of delight and excitement as his partner silently walked up to Tobias on socked feet, a scant few feet away. 

“But no more.” Both of Tobias’ hands swept up, and Will realized this would not be the movement of a conductor--it was the musician, now, playing the funereal procession. It would be Tuneless’ last song. Quickly, like a cellist pulling a bow across the neck of his instrument, Tobias slashed through the air before him. “Death.”

Hannibal darted forward, at the same moment that Franklyn collapsed to the floor, his eyes still wide open but now unseeing. The blood spurted from the artery that Hannibal opened in Tobias’ neck, mirroring his own motion, sawing through the skin with a deft, precise hand as skillfully as a surgeon. The suit coat Tobias wore had likely never seen a drop of blood, the immaculate uniform of a Fighter, all harm glancing away and coming to rest on the weaker man unfit to bear even the slightest of it. Now, it was drenched, the rich redness pumping from his opened throat and staining his skin, his clothes, the carpeting on the floor. 

Tobias had time to assume a look of shocked horror in his expression before his face went slack and he dropped, first to his knees, then sprawled out on his front. The pool of blood steadily spread beneath him. 

Hannibal wiped the blade of the scalpel delicately with the square of fabric from his front pocket, then set it aside, folding the material once more and tucking it away. The red blotches of blood looked like flowers, Will decided, going down to his knees next to the bodies. “You could have done that before he’d murdered Franklyn,” he admonished Hannibal, as the other man made his way to a corner cabinet. He withdrew a large plastic tarp, folded neatly, which he brought over to the grisly scene. “He was useless, but not a danger.”

“He was useless,” Hannibal repeated, tossing one end of the tarp to Will, who helped him unfold it on the floor next to the corpses. “And, as Tobias pointed out, rather generous with his own helpings.” 

“So you allowed him to die because he was fat?” Will asked, incredulous, grabbing Tobias by the shoulders and rolling him over onto his back. The movement put him face-up on the tarp, red wound at his neck still dribbling blood and gaping horribly. Will made a face. 

“No, Will. I allowed him to die because Tobias was lean. And I do know how much you enjoy a good bit of...dinner music?” His eyes twinkled as he looked up to meet Will’s gaze as he grasped Franklyn’s ankles, and nodded at Will to take his wrists. 

“That may be--” Will paused to huff out a breath as their hoisted the dead weight of the porculent man into the air, body swinging like an overindulgent pundulum between them, belly brushing the blood-soaked carpet. They dropped him unceremoniously onto the tarp, his body sprawled over Tobias’ in a macabre dog pile. Will finished his sentence, breathing hard as Hannibal bent to the task of wrapping the bodies tightly in the tarp. “--That may be one of the most offensive things I have ever heard, Hannibal.” 

He put his hands on his hips, staring down at the man, and Hannibal looked up at him. His eyes searched Will’s face, attempting to gauge how serious he was being; then he nodded.

“We are each of us governed by our natures,” he reminded Will gently, “and as unable to combat them as we are to rebel against our own flesh.”

He shifted his weight, settling his posterior on the floor with one leg extended in front of him. His fingers gathered his trouser fabric at the knee, pulling it up a few inches. It was reflex for Will to raise his hand, his fingertips tracing the matching lines that scarred his brow. The name began over his eye--he could still recall the sting of the blood that dripped into it, that ran down his cheek and over his lips, the taste like copper and rusted iron--and reached nearly to the crown of his head. The lines were elegant, cleanly made by a scalpel wielded in an expert hand. It was a stark contrast to the ones Hannibal was showing now, wobbly and jagged and still looking as raw as they had the day Will had knelt at Hannibal’s feet and made the Fighter his. 

“Tasteless,” he admitted, and dropped his hand. He allowed the careful smile that wanted to burst out, ignoring the small--and growing daily smaller--feeling of horror in the pit of his stomach at the fact that he enjoyed it, revelled in it, craved it. 

“Tastelessness and artistry are not mutually exclusive,” Hannibal reminded him, busying himself once again with tying cords around the tarp to prepare it for removal. “Tobias felt sure that a musician could not express himself in a tuneless fashion, and so he sought to deny his true nature for the nature he desired. I chose to find artistry in a fashion that would allow me to embrace my nature, while still expressing myself creatively and artistically. I think you will agree, Will, that the food I make is rather exquisite. I create something that can be appreciated and enjoyed, all the while obeying my true nature by exploiting ingredients that many would find--well. It is a delicate balance.”

Will smiled at his phrasing and nodded, retrieving the small carpeted dolly that they often used for moving their work and helping Hannibal to load the tarp-wrapped bodies onto it. They moved the tarp into the back of an elegant SUV that Hannibal had picked out, slamming the hatch closed on the bright blue plastic. It set the Truck Nuts that Will had purchased for the SUV--as a gag gift to Hannibal, to match the “TSTLESS” vanity plate directly above the hitch--to swinging gently as he rounded the vehicle and climbed in the passenger side. 

As they drove away, Hannibal reached over, covering Will’s hand with his own. It was a warm, gentle, comfortable gesture, and Will sighed. He leaned his head back against the headrest, turning to watch the countryside sweep by as they drove through the late afternoon sunset. 

We are each of us governed by our natures. We are each of us monsters, he thought, and turned his hand up to wind their fingers together.


End file.
